Threat in tweet leads to arrest of South High student

A 15-year-old South High Community School student was arrested Thursday for allegedly using Twitter to make a threat against South High students.

The unidentified female was charged Thursday in Juvenile Court with two counts of accessory before the fact, police said in a statement Thursday night.

Her arrest stemmed from Wednesday night reports of many messages on social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, referring to a rumor about a possible “hit list” that allegedly contained the names of 200 students at South High who were going to die today.

Police Chief Gary J. Gemme said Thursday night there was “no identifiable threat and we don’t anticipate any problems.”

The reports of a possible hit list included a posting that said “Word on the street is that there is a hit list of 200 people who are going to die Friday at South. Oh God. Doe (sic) we really need more tragedy? People need Jesus,” police said.

Worcester police continue to investigate the source of the rumor of an alleged hit list.

The postings came after some students overheard other students speaking about the end of the world and how one student’s parent said he could see the future. The parent apparently envisioned seeing 200 students dead, officials said.“It started and morphed into a hit list, into 200 kids dying on Friday,” Chief Gemme said.

Police put a safety plan in place including the use of school liaison officers, patrol officers and detectives, Chief Gemme said. Police were at the school Thursday.

“What happened was a lot of students were concerned about the messages and parents picked it up,” Chief Gemme said. “Based on what happened over the last week, parents called city officials concerned about this potential threat.”

In their investigation, police were shown several Twitter comments referring to the “hit list” rumor. One comment read, “Will someone please shoot up South High?” The tweet caused concern and several students expressed fear about the postings, police said.

That tweet was traced to the 15-year-old female, who was arrested at the school and subsequently brought to the police station, where she was interviewed in the presence of her mother, police said.

In a related matter, police are continuing to investigate a posting by a North High School student. The post asked if someone had a gun for sale.

The posting, which was discovered Monday, was allegedly by a student who struck a teacher in the head with an apple, Chief Gemme said. That student was suspended from school for 10 days.

“I think when you are dealing with these young people, I’m not sure they understand the consequences of posting these kinds of messages on Facebook or Twitter,” Chief Gemme said.